Wednesday, June 23, 2010

This is Apple Perfection™???

Hey, so, you know how Apple is supposed to just work and all that? Say good bye to viruses and crashes, and now available with both great taste AND less filling?

Yeah. No.

I'm going to start keeping track of the amount of crashes I have on the iPad. I figured the first few just had to be flukes, because you don't hear people complain about Apple OSs crashing, because Apples Just Work™. But there I was, working or playing, and boom. Crashes.

The third party app crashes I can give a partial pass to, because Apple didn't write them, but one would expect them to test them for stability. Because a crashing third party app to a common Apple user (hurrr) is probably indistinguishable from an OS crash. I've been amazed by the amount of crashing I've experienced with third party apps, and have started saving my work as I go (which is not always easy depending on the app, because there is no save function, because APPLE PRODUCTS DON'T CRASH WHY WOULD YOU IMPLY SUCH A THING?! HERETIC! BURN HIM! BURN HIM!) So I've gotten into the habit of opening up a new application, doing something, quitting, and coming back to see if it saved. Then saving or quitting or whatever I need to do to protect my updates from a crash every few minutes or few changes I make.

Isn't this what Apple users were trying to get away from? Constantly saving just in case you get a blue screen of death and lose all your work? Now I'm just doing the same damn thing, and without all the extra functionality of a complete OS!

Where was I? Oh yeah, I can half-forgive the third party app crashes, but the Apple apps like iTunes, Safari, and the app store crashing? WTFM8?! This is THEIR application running on THEIR software running on THEIR OS running on THEIR hardware, and I'm still getting crashes? And must the app store reset the breadcrumbs of where I was whenever I install an app? It's hard enough to get a complete listing of a specific type of app in the store without clicking to install one item, being kicked out of the app store just so I can stare at a progress bar, only to return and find I'm back in the top-level category listings! Then to sit there trying to remember what category you were in, or what search you did to get to the listing you found the related app on to get to the one where the similar app listing included the other app you wanted to download. Heaven forbid you want to install two items from the bottom of the listings for a category, and have to click "Show more" wait five seconds, scroll down, click "Show more" again, and repeat 10 times only to install the first app, get kicked out to stare at a progress bar like a simpleton staring at a toaster, then go back to the app store, and do the same thing again for the second app. But hey, I guess it was built around simple, so why not build for simpletons?

I also enjoy watching iTunes or the iPod function shit itself when it has to do more than one thing at a time. Like if you are trying to download, browse, watch, or listen when a TOS update comes up, or you have to reenter your password. This morning there was a good 30 seconds of hesitant half-function before the app store choked to death on its own vomit and collapsed as the home screen popped up just in time to prevent me from seeing the app store deathrattle and release its bowels. At this point, I (of course) immediately clicked on the app store again and chuckled while the OS spent 20 or 30 seconds cleaning up the shit and vomit before reanimating the corpse and lurching it up on the screen.

All that said, blah-bitty-bloo, still not worth your money just yet, still a fun toy, etc.

4 comments:

NotClauswitz said...

I'm gonna wait ten years for that, like I did with the iPod. That little POS kept crashing too until a later version of iTunes was finally more stable.

HK_USP_45 said...

Just curious - a lot of people complain about about apps on the iphone crashing, when the user's manual clearly states to shut it down and restart after loading a new app. Are you doing that with your ipad?

Fletch said...

I'd be happy to if you could tell me where the restart button is.

So far I see one button, and one sleep button. Ok, I held down the sleep button and got the option to power down. I did that, and will see if I get any more success with reliability.

Also, why should I have to read the manual (did it even come with one???) it's so simple I should already know how to use it. But if it requires a reboot after every app installation, they should probably say something like, "You've installed a new app, please reboot to let it complete the install!" But that would probably seem to microsofty...

NotClauswitz said...

It should recognize that a new app was installed and automagically prompt that a reboot is about to take place. Sheesh, even Windows does that.
But I will never get an iPhone, not until I can buy just $50 worth of minutes on one, and that'll never ever happen.